Their work, as we have said, was begun in confusion; but out of chaos they have brought order, out of darkness light. Previous to the emancipation not more than 30,000 colored persons in all these United States could read and write. To-day, according to the statement of Commissioner Orr, of this State, a statement verified by statistics, fully 1,000,000 colored children are in the schools. I say, previous to the emancipation, not more than 30,000 colored persons could read and write. To-day, according to the last report of the society under whose auspices I have been laboring for many years, that society alone has given instruction to 80,000 persons, and these in turn to tens of thousands more. This number could, of course, be greatly swelled by the figures which could be shown by the Congregationalists, Baptists and Presbyterians, who for these many years have been laboring with equal patience, zeal and love, for the advancement of mankind.
There are some, however, who think that there has not been enough accomplished in these years, for the time, the money and the energy spent. Well, perhaps there has not. But suppose these various societies had accomplished, up to this time, nothing more than the teaching of these thousands simply how to read and write, who could estimate the value of the achievement? Who could measure the scope of its influence and tell where that influence will end! When you have once taught a man to read you have placed in his hands the key with which he may—if he be industrious—unlock all the stores of knowledge in his own language. When you have once taught a man to read you have opened up to him unlimited possibilities, and laid the foundations for a broad and liberal culture. When you have once taught a man to read you have introduced him into the best society of all the ages; you have made him the companion of Shakespeare, Milton and Bunyan; of Bacon and of Burke; of Tennyson, Longfellow, Bryant and Emerson; and you have quite unfitted him for slavery. When years ago a kind mistress, in the State of Maryland, undertook to teach a little slave boy to read, little did she think that she was awakening aspirations never again to be quenched; little did she dream that she was unchaining extraordinary powers, and kindling the first fires of eloquence in the soul of a Douglass. The alphabet was made for freemen. It is the weapon most dreaded by tyrants. When Martin Luther would break most effectually and for all time the papal yoke from the neck of Germany, he translated the Bible and set the people to reading. I am thankful to-day for the pen of Lincoln and for the sword of Grant; but more thankful by far for the patient "school ma'am" who taught the negro his letters, and set a million of us to reading.
INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION. III.—WHAT THE A. M. A. IS DOING.
BY SUPT. ALBERT SALISBURY.
In two previous articles (Oct. and Nov., 1884) I have set forth the general aspects of Industrial Education and its relations to a missionary work like that of the American Missionary Association. I wish now to set forth, briefly, the practical possibilities and the present undertakings of the Association in this line.
Among all the industrial schools of this continent, Hampton Institute stands easily first in the amount of invested capital, or plant, and in the variety and extent of its operations. It is, moreover, unique; there is nothing else like it, and perhaps never will be, either in its scope or in the genius which marks its administration. To give any adequate account of the work in actual operation there would occupy all the space at my command.
The A. M. A. can not attempt to duplicate Hampton Institute; it has neither the means nor the man for such an undertaking.
I therefore pass to the consideration of what it is possible for us to do on our wider field in the present and near future. The industrial training which can be given by the A. M. A. schools is necessarily limited, both by financial and other considerations, not only in extent but also in variety. The ways in which we can wisely make effort seem to be as follows: 1. Agriculture, which is to be, after all, the occupation of the great majority of the people for whom we are laboring. In this, we may well give somewhat of theoretical instruction through lectures and even text-books; but more important than this, and not incompatible with it, is that effective teaching which comes by working out the practical object lesson of a thoroughly well tilled farm, as is done at Hampton, and to a less degree, as yet, at Tougaloo and Talladega. In this a two-fold purpose is served. Employment is given to needy students, and practical education is at the same time given, with but partial interruption of the progress of intellectual training.